Grassfarming
Benefits the Environment

When
properly managed, raising animals on pasture
instead of factory farms is a net benefit to the environment. To
begin with, a diet of grazed grass requires much less fossil fuel
than a feedlot diet of dried corn and soy. On pasture, grazing animals
do their own fertilizing and harvesting. The ground is covered with
greens all year round, so it does an excellent job of harvesting
solar energy and holding on to top soil and moisture. As you will
read in the bulletins below, grazed pasture removes carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere more effectively than any land use, including
forestland and ungrazed prairie, helping to slow global warming.

It’s a different story in a confinement
operation. Here, the animals are crowded into sheds or kept outdoors
on barren land and all their feed is shipped to them from distant
fields. On those fields, the crops are treated with fossil-fuel based
fertilizers, sprayed with pesticides, and planted, tilled, and harvested
with heavy equipment. Each of these operations requires non-renewable
fuel. Then the feed is shipped to feed manufacturers where it is
dried, flaked or pelleted, and mixed with other ingredients and then,
finally, shipped to the waiting animals, using yet more fossil fuel.

There is also a day-for-night difference in “manure
management” on the two systems. On well-managed pasture-based
farms, the animals spread their manure evenly over the soil where
it becomes a natural source of organic fertilizer. The manure improves
the quality of the grass, which increases the rate of gain of the
animals. It’s a closed, sustainable system.

On factory farms, the excrement builds up in
the feedlots and sheds where it fouls the air and releases ammonia
and other gasses to the eco-system. The fumes stress and sicken the
animals and farm workers, and they lower the quality of life of people
in nearby homes. To get rid of the waste, it is shipped to nearby
fields where it overloads the land with nutrients. The excess nitrogen
and phosphorous pollute the soil and ground water and drain off into
streams, rivers, and estuaries where it can create “dead zones” that
threaten the fish population.

The news bulletins below provide more detailed information
about the environmental benefits of keeping animals home on the range.

Got Pollution?

According to a July 2011 study conducted by the USDA’s
Agricultural Research Service, a 10,000 cow confinement dairy in Idaho
produces staggering amounts of greenhouse gases. Every day, 37,075 pounds
of pollution spew into the air. This breaks down into 33,092 pounds of
methane, 3,575 pounds of ammonia, and 409 pounds of nitrous oxide. Most
of the emissions come from the bare dirt lots where the cows spend their
time between milkings. The 25-acre manure holding pond is the next biggest
source.

Raising dairy cows on pasture results in a fraction
of this amount of pollution. What’s more, the green pasture draws
greenhouse gasses out of the air and stores it in the soil where
it increases soil fertility. The richer the soil, the more nutritious the
grass. Cows produce more milk when they are on high-quality feed which
makes the natural system even more efficient. We humans, meanwhile, get
to drink extra-nutritious milk that has more antioxidants, more omega-3
fatty acids, and more beta-carotene. Nature has the best solutions.

Great Milk! And a Healthier World

Raise dairy cows outside on pasture—the time-honored
way—and the world benefits. This is the conclusion of a just-released
study conducted by the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS).

Compared with dairy cows raised in factory farms, letting
Bossie graze in the fresh air lowered the amount of ammonia released into
the atmosphere by about 30 percent. It also cut emissions of other greenhouse
gasses, including methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide. Furthermore,
the carbon footprint of the pasture-based dairy was 6 percent smaller than
that of a high-production dairy herd kept indoors. The milk of grass-fed
cows is much healthier for you as well. (Read Jo Robinson’s article Super
Natural Milk.)

Eatwild Producer Georgia's Small Business Person of
the Year

Congratulations to Eatwild producer Will Harris for
being selected Georgia’s Small Business Person of the Year. Harris
is the owner and president of the 1,000-acre White
Oak Pastures, one of the largest pasture-based farms in the country.
The operation employs 40 people and sells its organic, grass-fed beef to
Whole Food Markets and Publix Supermarkets in five states.

SBA Georgia District Director Terri Denison said that “Will
Harris and White Oak Pastures serve as a prime example of how innovation
coupled with opportunity can transform a business or entire industry.” One
of Harris’ many achievements is the construction of the largest solar
barn in the Southeast. The barn generates 50,000 watts of electricity which
is used to run the on-site beef processing plant. Harris is now installing
a USDA-inspected poultry plant to process his pastured chickens and turkeys
that will employ an additional 25 people.

Sweet-Tasting Grasses Speed the Growth of Cattle
and Sheep and Lowers Greenhouse Gasses

This April, British Agricultural Minister Jim Paice
announced the results of a new study showing that raising cattle and sheep
on high-sugar grasses can lower their greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent.

Everyone benefits from the sweeter feed. The ruminants
like the taste of the grass and eat more of it. The sugars allow them to
make more efficient use of the proteins in the grass. As a result,
the animals reach market size weeks earlier, producing less methane overall.

Minister Paice said: “It is very exciting this
new research has discovered that simply changing the way we feed farm animals
we have the potential to make a big difference to the environment.”

The study was carried out by Reading University and
the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences. High-sugar
pasture grasses are now available for sale.

USDA Weighs In: Grazing Good for Soil &
Environment

Bring on the cattle! says a new study conducted by researchers
at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). For twelve years, soil scientists
at the Agricultural Research Service branch of the USDA have been studying
the impact that grazing animals have on the land. Compared with grassland that
has been undisturbed, areas that have been moderately grazed have more carbon
stored in the soil. Stored carbon increases the fertility of the soil and slows
global warming.

U.S. Scientists: “Grass-Fed Cattle Benefit the Environment”

Which is better for the environment—raising beef
cattle on pasture or in the feedlots? On pasture, says a February 2011 report
from The Union for Concerned Scientists (UCS) titled “Raising the Steaks – Global
Warming and Pasture-Raised Beef Production in the United States.”

Although all cattle produce greenhouse gasses, the UCS
has determined that a well-maintained pasture and careful management of the
grazing animals can draw greenhouse gasses out of the air and store them in
the soil where they fuel plant growth. The overall impact is positive. Feedlots
have no living plants – just bare dirt and manure; instead of absorbing
greenhouse gasses, they emit them.

We applaud the UCS for going one step farther and researching
ways to make raising cattle on pasture even more beneficial to the planet.
Here are some of their primary recommendations:

Improve the nutritional quality of the pasture by adding
legumes such as red clover.

Manage the cattle so that they do not overgraze the
pasture. “Rotational grazing” is the best method.

Manage the cattle so that they deposit their manure
more evenly over the pasture.

Find ways to increase grass production throughout the
year, not just in the spring and early summer.

Apply appropriate amounts of slow-release nitrogen fertilizer
at the right time.

Eat less feedlot meat

A growing number of people believe that eating less meat is good for the environment.
This is true when it comes to eating meat from animals raised in feedlots.
But eating meat from well-managed grazing animals is a net benefit to
the planet.

A paper released by the Natural Resources Conservation Service of the United
States Department of Agriculture makes the following points:

Grazing animals eat plants that cannot be digested by humans.

Meat from grass-fed animals requires only one
calorie of fossil fuel to produce two calories of food. Many grain and
vegetable crops require from 5 to 10 calories of fossil-fuel for every
calorie of food or fiber produced.

Well-managed pasture absorbs far more rain water than most other land uses.

Grazed lands help slow global warming by removing carbon dioxide from the
air. Grazing land in the Great Plains contain over 40 tons of carbon per
acre. Cultivated soils contain about 26 tons.

Well-managed grazing lands provide much-needed habit for wildlife, reduce
water runoff, and provide cleaner, more abundant water for wildlife and human
use.

Finishing cattle on pasture may
reduce greenhouse gasses

As the controversy about global warming
heats up, more attention is being focused on the amount of greenhouse gasses
produced by ruminants. Methane gas, a by-product of rumen digestion, is even
more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping the sun's heat, making it a legitimate
cause for concern. However, the production of methane gas is only a part of
the complex environmental equation. An organization called the Institute for
Environmental Research and Education (IERE) has been comparing the overall
impact on greenhouse gasses of raising animals on pasture or in a typical feedlot.

In the graph below, you can see IERE's
side-by-side comparison of the two systems. The black bars represent feedlot
animals and the green bars represent pastured animals. Although an animal raised
on pasture actually produces more methane (represented by the bars in
the category labeled "enteric") than raising them in a feedlot, there
are compensating factors. First and foremost, the pasture itself reduces greenhouse
gasses through a process called "carbon sequestration"
which more than offsets the extra methane. Second, there is much greater use
of fossil fuel in the production of a feedlot diet than in the raising of pasture
grasses. Third, the manure in feedlots is a major emitter of ammonia, another
greenhouse gas. The net result is represented in the final bars on the right.

The verdict: fattening ruminants in a
feedlot makes a significant contribution to global warming, while raising them
on pasture offsets the grazing animals' added methane production and may actually
reduce greenhouse gasses. More work needs to be done on this issue.

Keep ‘Em Moving to Reduce Greenhouse Gasses

All ruminants—including cattle, sheep, bison, and
goats—belch up a significant amount of methane gas as they digest their
grass-based diet. Methane gas is a potent contributor to global warming, so
reducing methane production is an important step in protecting the environment.

Animal scientists have discovered that dividing pasture
land into separate areas or “paddocks” and carefully managing the
movement of cattle through those paddocks produces the highest quality grasses.
Cattle that graze on this succulent grass produce as much as 20 percent less
methane. This style of ranching is called “Management Intensive Grazing” or
MiG, and it’s practiced by most of the ranchers on eatwild.com.

Growing corn and soy causes six times more soil erosion
than pasture

Farming cannot be sustainable if the topsoil is constantly
being eroded. Currently, the United States is losing three billion tons of
nutrient-rich topsoil each year. The graph below shows the results of a new
study from the University of Wisconsin Discovery Farms Program. Compared with
grazed pasture, gently sloped land devoted to soy and corn production lost
six times more topsoil each year. According to Dennis Frame, director of Discovery
Farms, if the trend of selling cows and moving to grain production doesn't
cease, soil erosion and nutrient losses will continue to climb.

Grazing better for the soil than growing grain

Six Minnesota pasture-based ranchers asked researchers
to compare the health of their soil with soil from neighboring farms that produced
corn, soybean, oats, or hay. At the end of four years of monitoring, researchers
concluded that the carefully managed grazed land had:

53% greater soil stability

131% more earthworms

Substantially more organic matter

Less nitrate pollution of groundwater

Improved stream quality

Better habitat for grassland birds and other wildlife

Depending on the way that cattle are managed, they can
either devastate a landscape or greatly improve the health of the soil. To
be listed on our Eatwild Pastured
Products Directory, producers must certify that they use best management
practices.

Increasing pasture land would
help reduce global warming

Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses are increasing
in the Earth's atmosphere, leading to changes in our global climate. The grasses
and legumes found in pasture are highly effective at removing excess carbon
dioxide from the air and storing it in the soil as carbon, a phenomenon known
as "carbon sequestration."
Soils in the grazing land in the Great Plains have over 40 tons of carbon per
acre, while cultivated soils have only 26. In recent years, land that had been
planted in row crops was allowed to revert back to pasture as part of the US
government's Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). The pasture land gained an
average of one-half ton of carbon per acre per year during the first 5 years
after planting. This means that 18 million tons of carbon were removed from
the atmosphere each year as a result of farmers putting over 36 million acres
of land into the conservation program.

Long-Lived Cows Reduce Global Warming

Bossy has a short lifespan when she is raised in a confinement
dairy, which is the way most cows are raised today. She provides a very high
volume of milk, partly due to hormone injections and a high-grain diet, but
she lasts for only 2-3 years. Then infertility, disease, physical problems,
or inflammation end her milking career, and she is sold at auction for hamburger.

Cows raised on grass are healthier and more fertile, making
them good milk producers for up to twelve years. These long-lived and more
contented cows may reduce greenhouse gas production (methane) between 10 and
11 percent according to a British Study.

Pasture reduces topsoil erosion by 93 percent

Currently, the United States is losing three billion
tons of nutrient-rich topsoil each year. Growing corn and soy for animal feed
using conventional methods causes a significant amount of this soil loss. Compared
with row crops, pasture reduces soil loss by as much as 93 percent.

The Sierra Club recommends grass-fed beef

The Sierra Club recognizes the ecological advantages
of raising cattle on pasture and therefore endorses grass-fed beef. The following
remarks appear on its website: "Spared of the necessity of antibiotics
and pesticides, grass-fed beef is also friendlier to the environment. Ranchers
in the grass-fed market tend to be keen stewards of the land, concerned with
proper grazing techniques and the nurturing of native grasses. Indeed, many
such ranchers think of themselves as grass farmers first, cattle ranchers second."

Organic beef came in second. "If you can't
find grass-fed beef, consider organic beef as a next best choice. While organically
raised animals may still be confined in feeding operations and finished on
grain rather than natural forage, they should at least be free of hormones,
antibiotics and pesticides."

"Green grazing" brings back native plants

A growing number of grassfarmers are practicing "green
grazing" or "conservation grazing,"
a type of management that is specifically designed to restore grazing land
to a more natural and sustainable condition.

The T.O. Cattle Company in San Juan Bautista, California
has been practicing green grazing since 1993. This process involves carefully
controlling herd size and herd movement to
"mimic natural disturbance of native ungulates on the landscape."
In other words, the cattle are managed so that they have a similar impact on
the land as native grazers, which in California include Tule elk, pronghorn,
and deer.

Careful monitoring of the project shows that green
grazing has: 1) increased the number and vigor of native plants, 2) increased
the vegetative cover of stream banks, 3) expanded wetlands, 4) hastened the
natural decomposition of cow manure, and 5) extended the growing season of
the grassland. In addition, from 1998 to 2000, the percentage of perennial
grasses increased from 40 to 50 percent.

Results of this grazing experiment were presented
at the Society for Range Management – 2001 Annual Conference in Kailua-Kona,
Hawaii.

Lambs control insects and increase crop yield

Insects can take a toll on alfalfa in
the winter months. The usual procedure is to spray the fields with insecticides.
A group of forward-thinking California scientists decided to apply lambs instead.
Letting the lambs graze the winter stubble eliminated the insect problem and
also increased the next year's hay crop by 14% over untreated land and 24%
over fields treated with the insecticide Lorsban. Let little lambs eat ivy and alfalfa.

Grassland may absorb more CO2 than trees

It's a well known fact that trees draw carbon dioxide
from the air and store it as carbon, thereby slowing the rate of global warming.
But a new study from Duke University reveals that restoring native grasslands
might be a better solution than planting trees in wetter areas of the country.

"Grasses are deceptively productive,"
says lead investigator Robert Jackson. "You don't see where all the carbon
goes, so there is a misconception that woody species [such as trees and shrubs]
store more carbon. That's just not the case." Grasses store vast amounts
of carbon in their underground root mass.

Raising cattle on grass is one way to make it financially
feasible to expand our native grasslands. Although cows generate their own
greenhouse gasses, the net effect of raising ruminants on pasture is to slow
global warming.

New Zealand leads the way in
reducing greenhouse gasses from grassfed ruminants

There's no way to say this politely. Grazing cattle,
sheep, and goats do a lot of belching and farting. One of the gasses they emit—methane—is
a potent greenhouse gas that may be contributing to the warming of the planet.
New Zealand, unlike the United States government, is committed to salvaging
the 1997 Kyoto Agreement, which was an attempt to set international goals for
reducing greenhouse emissions. To do their fair share, the Kiwis have been
finding ways to reduce the amount of methane produced by their 50 million livestock.
According to a Reuters news bulletin by Graeme Peters, "The minister has
ruled out a 'flatulance' tax...and said the government instead would pump more
money into research to find a solution."

The research has already paid off. A New Zealand
micro-biologist has created a formula of living micro-organisms that can be
given to ruminants to destroy methane-producing bacteria. These helpful bacteria
not only reduce greenhouse gasses, they boost production and improve the animals'
condition.

The New Zealand research is a shining example of
how we should be spending our research dollars.

A team of researchers from Colorado State University
led by Richard H. Hart studied plant communities in an area of Colorado that
had been either protected from cattle grazing or grazed lightly, moderately,
or heavily for 55 years. According to the investigators, "plant species
biodiversity was greatest on the moderately-grazed pasture. It had more kinds
of plants than the lightly or heavily grazed pastures and was not as completely
dominated by the most common species as the ungrazed exclosures. Diversity
was least in the ungrazed exclosures, which were overrun by plains pricklypear
cactus." The researchers went on to say that "Rangeland today, moderately
or heavily grazed by cattle, looks much like the same rangeland looked in the
1800s, before the Great Plains were settled." (Learn more by reading Plant
Biodiversity on Shortgrass Steppe after 55 Years of Zero, Light, Moderate,
or Heavy Cattle Grazing.)

Grazing animals make a visible
contribution to soil fertility

In a conventional
feedlot operation, large amounts of manure are deposited in a relatively
small space that is devoid of living plants. Because there is an over-abundance
of manure and nothing to fertilize, the manure becomes a "waste management
problem" rather than a natural resource. Feedlot operators spend millions
of dollars a year trying to curb the offensive odors, groundwater contamination,
and surface runoff.

In
sharp contrast, when animals are finished on pasture, their manure is deposited
naturally over a large area of grassland, allowing the nutrients to be put
to immediate use. In the photo at right, you can see a vivid illustration
of how plant growth is encouraged by a well-managed grazing program. The
aerial photograph shows grazing land managed by the T.O.
Cattle Company a family-owned business that produces grass-finished beef.
(Click on the photo for larger version) The photo was taken less than a year
after Joe and Julie Morris began grazing their animals. The large triangular
area of dark green just below the center of the photo is the land grazed
by the cattle. The lighter green and less fertile areas surrounding the grazed
land were either totally rested or less intensively grazed.

Commercial poultry operators
load the Delmarva Peninsula with arsenic

Operators of large poultry operations feed low levels
of arsenic to their chickens in order to enhance the birds' appetite and increase
their feed efficiency. On the Delmarva Peninsula (Delaware, Maryland and Virginia),
600 million chickens produce more than 1.5 billion kilograms of raw manure
annually, which translates into an annual load of 20 to 50 thousand kilograms
of arsenic.

Pastured poultry farmers do not feed arsenic or
other artificial growth stimulants to their chickens.

Findings about genetically modified
corn

A high percentage of the grain fed to
feedlot cattle and bison is from genetically modified (gm) crops. According
to an August 22nd article in the New York Times,
there is new evidence that gm corn is harmful to beneficial insects. Researchers
gathered leaves from plants growing in and around gm corn fields and fed them
to Monarch butterfly caterpillars. According to the Times,
"Twenty percent of the caterpillars eating leaves bearing genetically
engineered pollen died, while all caterpillars eating leaves with regular corn
pollen survived."

Another good reason to raise animals on
grass rather than grain.

Intensively managed grazing
best for the pocket book and the environment

Low milk prices are threatening the
survival of small dairy farms, and the most common way to increase profitability
is to add more animals. But adding more cows means adding more feed and potentially
overloading the land with excess nitrogen and phosphorous from manure.

A team of researchers from the US
Regional Pasture Research group in Pennsylvania looked at the most environmentally
friendly way to increase herd size. They determined that grazing the cows
on intensively managed pasture "provided the best benefit to the farmer
and the highest potential for reducing nitrogen leaching losses into ground
water."
They concluded that "these results illustrate that dairy farmers should
consider adding rotationally grazed pasture as they expand or alter their land
base and cropping strategy." Read Crop
Options For An Expanding Dairy Farm In Wisconsin.

Feeding chicken manure to
cattle raised in confinement can be a deadly process

To cut costs, an increasing number of beef feedlot
operations rely on chicken manure as a cheap source of protein. One drawback
is that the manure can contain high levels of residues from all the drugs and
chemicals routinely fed to commercial poultry. In a feedlot of about 1,000
head of cattle, 146 animals died within a period of a few months from serious
digestive disturbances. Autopsies showed very high levels of copper in the
animals' livers. Further investigation determined that the animals had died
from copper poisoning and that the source of the copper was manure from poultry
treated with copper sulfate to avoid a common disease called "aspergillosis".
What goes around, comes around.

Most of the chickens raised in the United States are routinely
dosed with antibiotics. The argument is that the drugs reduce infection, hasten
growth, and therefore increase profits. Danish poultry producers challenged
that assumption in a large-scale experiment.

On February 15, 1998, the entire Danish poultry industry
voluntarily stopped the use of antibiotics as growth promoters. They discovered
that withdrawal of the drugs "did not result in major disease problems
in the flocks."
Although the drug-free birds consumed slightly more food (1.82 versus 1.78
kg feed per kg live bird) they weighed more at slaughter. Meanwhile, the savings
from stopping the routine use of antibiotics increased net income by 25 cents
per 100 broilers. That may sound like chicken feed until you realize that the
Danish poultry industry produces more than 100 million birds per year. That's
a net gain of $250,000.

But there are important benefits that are not included
in the bottom line. Danish consumers now have the luxury of purchasing antibiotic-free
chicken. Furthermore, the industry has stopped contributing to the possible
creation of antibiotic-resistant superbugs. A win-win-win situation.

Meanwhile, back in the USA, poultry
producers gear up for a more aggressive defense of agribusiness as usual

Contrast the progressive, pro-environmental,
cost-effective Danish experiment just described with the defensive posture
of some members of the American poultry industry.

A speech by two industry spokesmen
was summarized in the March 2000 issue of The Poultry Letter as follows: "Currently,
there are many critics of agriculture: environmentalists, consumer groups
against antibiotic use and against GMO's (genetically modified organisms;
use of biotechnology in food production), etc. Agriculture needs to counter
false charges and educate the general public and government officials. However,
there are challenges. Consumer activists are perceived as credible. Additionally,
the media is interested in communicating emotion rather than facts... The
consumer views of poultry are generally good because poultry has many positives
- nutritious, low fat, low cost, etc. However, there are some negatives which
are increasing in their concern to various groups - animal welfare, worker
safety, antibiotic use, environmental contamination, etc. Agriculture
must aggressively defend itself and educate the general public and government
officials."

Bees can spread pollen from genetically
modified crops more than 4,000 meters away

Much of the grain fed to our conventionally raised livestock
is genetically modified or GM. The only way to keep pollen from GM crops from "out-crossing" to
unmodified plants is to create a sufficiently large buffer zone. A recent British
study found that bees transport pollen more than 4,000 meters—a much
larger buffer zone than most farmers maintain. This finding "stunned the
Ministry of the Environment, and a spokesman said that existing isolation guidelines
will have to be reviewed."

Even very low levels of nitrate
can be hazardous to wildlife

Oregon State University researchers found that tadpoles
and young frogs raised in water with low levels of nitrates typical of fertilizer
runoff ate less, developed physical abnormalities, suffered paralysis, and
eventually died. In control tanks with normal water, none died. "We're
looking at levels of nitrates so low we didn't think we'd get any effect,''
said Andrew Blaustein, a zoology professor."
Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency regional office in Seattle
said they could not comment until they have reviewed the study, published in
December 1999 in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.

The ground water in properly managed grazing land
has been found to be as free of nitrate and other contaminants as the water
from nearby forest land.

Grazed pasture is the best land use for storing
carbon

Growing plants take carbon dioxide out of the air and "fix" it
into the soil as organic matter. The more carbon dioxide that's taken out of
the air, the lower the rate of global warming. Until recently, forested land
and ungrazed grasslands were thought to be the best "sinks" or storehouses
for carbon. The study iillustrated below concluded that well managed grazed
pasture may be far better.

"Soil Organic Carbon in fields of switch grass and
row crops as well as woodlots and pastures across the Chariton Valley, Iowa." Final
Report. Lee Burras and Julie McLaughlin, Iowa State University, January 25,
2002.

Mother Nature knows better once again

The concentration of carbon dioxide in our air is rapidly
rising, a condition that contributes to the greenhouse effect and potential
global warming. The more of the carbon that can be contained in the soil, however,
the less that escapes into the air. A report released by the USDA's Agricultural
Research Service finds that soil stores 2 to 3 times more carbon when the grass
was grazed than when it was harvested for hay or not harvested at all.

Another benefit of grazing, the researchers noted, was
that grazing also reduces costs by lowering needs for herbicides and producing
income from the livestock. They estimated that even putting as little as 10
percent of existing cropland into rotation with grazing would produce significant
cost reductions.